Bachelor of Laws (Honours)

ANU's law degree is a four-year, 192-unit program and one of the few Australian law schools where the compulsory first-year sequence is taught with an explicit foundations-first structure: Foundations of Australian Law and Torts in semester one, Lawyers, Justice and Ethics and Contracts in semester two, each paired with two non-law electives so students aren't buried in law content immediately. That structure is a deliberate response to the fact ANU takes students straight from high school into a professional degree rather than as a graduate-entry JD.

The location does real work here. Being five minutes from the High Court, Federal Court, and Parliament House means moot court exercises, clerkships, and guest lecturers from sitting judges or government solicitors aren't occasional; they're baked into how the degree runs, and a noticeable share of graduates end up in Commonwealth government legal roles, the Attorney-General's Department, or federal judicial associate positions straight out of the degree.

The 4000-level requirement (48 units minimum) pushes students into genuinely advanced seminar-style courses in their final year rather than coasting on core units, and electives can range from international humanitarian law to Indigenous legal issues, reflecting research strength areas within ANU's law school specifically.